In many video games played through game consoles, such as role-playing games (RPG's), a user or player controls the actions of one or more characters in the game throughout various events and situations. A common game situation is a battle between the player's characters (or players') and enemy characters. The video game provides a battle system for presenting information to the player and controlling the characters during battle. In a typical battle system, the video game displays for each character a corresponding bar that gradually fills over time. When the bar is full, the corresponding character can take some action. When the player is controlling several characters, keeping track of multiple action bars can become confusing and frustrating for the player. Furthermore, keeping track of the enemy action bars at the same time can be more confusing. As a result, coordinating the actions of characters can be difficult.